Basic Inventions - Fire - CLIL Polska

Fire was a crucial discovery for early humans as it gave them independence and led to technological advancements. Primitive man observed natural fires and learned to control and use fire for light, warmth, and cooking. They discovered different methods of making fire, such as percussion and wood friction. Fire provided heat, light, and protection against wild animals. It also led to the development of pottery and metalworking. Today, we still use fire for cooking, heating, and various industrial processes. Fire remains one of the most significant discoveries in human history. 🎵 🎵 Fire Man did not invent fire. He discovered how to use it. This single discovery did more to raise him above an animal existence than any other invention or discovery. Fire was the first source that gave man some independence of his environment. It became the basis for the vast amount of technology that followed in the years to come, and is still the basis for most of our modern technical processes. Fire is a natural phenomenon. It occurs in nature quite often. The eruption of volcanoes, the spontaneous combustion of decaying matter and bolts of lightning all produce natural fires. Primitive man, living completely in the wilds, was in a good position to observe such production of fire. He also observed its effect, destruction. But at the same time he must have noticed that fire gave light and warmth, and so set about to tame the flaming demon in order to use its good qualities. He regarded fire as a demon because it seemed to be alive, and because it consumed many things. After all, the ability to move and to eat are signs of life. Natural fire does both these things with a majestic and uncontrolled power. For these reasons, primitive man made fire one of his gods, but at the same time he realized by rationing fuel he could make that god work for him. A fire that is carefully fed with a small amount of fuel is a controlled fire. Once early man captured a bit of fire, perhaps a burning stick from a forest fire, he kept it going by adding small bits of wood from time to time. In the beginning, man did not know how to make fire, so he stole it from nature's own fires. When he moved from place to place he had to carefully carry and preserve the glowing coals for if they went out he would have to wait until nature provided him with another supply. But he finally learned how to make it for himself. Evidence of man-made fire are still being discovered as scientists dig deeper and deeper into man's past. They discovered that the men who lived during the geologic era known as Pleioton used fire. This dates all the way back to 250,000 years ago, the time when Peking Man lived. Peking Man is one of the oldest in the ancestral history of our race. He received his name because his remains were found in a limestone cave near Peking, China. Within this cave were also the charred ashes of wood and bone that indicated that Peking Man used fire as part of his domestic life. No one yet knows just when man began to make fire themselves, but scientists believe that it happened very early in history. They saw that it must have come about as a result of the observation of sparks. Forest fires are spread by hot sparks blown by the wind, and the early tool makers must have noticed that the rocks they chipped often threw off similar sparks. Following up on this observation, these first artisans obviously began to select those rocks that would make sparks every time they were struck. A very common mineral, iron pyrite, will give a shower of sparks when hit with another stone, and flint, the basis for many early tools, will do even better. This method of producing sparks by striking stones together is known as percussion, and all that is needed to start a fire is to direct the sparks to a pile of tinder made of dry leaves and tiny scraps of wood. Later on, much later, the combination of iron and flint became standard in the production of sparks. It was used in the early rifles and is still used by some primitive peoples. The other system of fire-making that was developed in primitive time is that of wood friction. Many methods and devices have been invented to produce fire by rubbing wood together. Some are quite simple. The fire saw consisted of a serrated block of wood. Another piece was rapidly scrapped back and forth until it became a piece of wood that could be used to make fire. This piece of wood was rapidly scrapped back and forth along the two edges. The fire plough was made in roughly the same way with a grooved piece of wood and another piece that slid rapidly back and forth in the groove. The most successful of these was the fire drill. This device consisted of a block of wood with a hole partially cut into it. A stick with a rounded end was inserted into the hole and rotated rapidly. There were many variations of the method of rotation. In some, the stick was spun between the hands. In others, a twisted cord was used to create the rotation. Perhaps the most successful of all fire drills was the one that used a bowstring in tension. All the fire-maker had to do was to twist the string over the stick and move the bow rapidly. But it did not matter what method was employed. The important thing was that they all produced fire. Obviously, if one rubs two pieces of wood together rapidly, they will become quite hot. The common belief is that this heat eventually ignites the wood and the fire-maker is successful. But there are two things wrong with this assumption. First of all, the wood did ignite and begin to burn. The fire-maker would be successful, but he would lose his tool and have to build a new one each time he needed a fire. Second, it is very rare that a thick piece of wood will start burning just from friction. It may char, but a blaze is what is really desired. The success of wood friction fire device is used due to the wood dust that is scraped off by the movement. The basic requirement is that one piece of wood be harder than the other, so that it acts like a file or a sander. Then there must be a groove or hole, in effect, a little oven, within which these scrapings can accumulate. As the drill is rotated or slid back and forth, it sands off tiny shavings from the block, known as the hearth. These collect in the hole or grove, which becomes hotter and hotter, as the friction warms the entire area. Since the shavings and wood dust are so small, they absorb the heat rapidly and soon begin to blow. A tiny puff of air will make them burst into a flame, and they can be shaken out onto a pile of tinder. The result of these efforts, a fire. Early man found several very important uses for fire. The first was heat. Not being equipped with a prospective fur, man found fire extremely useful during the long, cold winter nights. Built under the shelter of a rock overhang, or inside a cave, a fire gave a cosy warmth. However, it also produced light, and light gave more meaning to the long, dark nights. It was probably by firelight that the first artists in history painted the wonderful pictures which have been found in prehistoric caves. This light also enabled the women to make clothes, and the men to chip their weapons. It shut out the cold and darkness, and created for the first time in history a home for a family. Fire performed another valuable function as well. All wild animals, including those that were dangerous to man, were deathly afraid of the blazing heat, which in fur caused pain and death. So fire was perhaps man's first defensive weapon. But there were other and more important uses of fire yet to come. It seems quite natural today to use fire to supply the heat needed to cook food, but it undoubtedly took a great many years before early man learned to use the fire in that way. Perhaps it came about accidentally he saw raw meat fell into fire. Or maybe hunters found the burned bodies of animals after a forest fire. Whatever the method of discovery, the use of fire for cooking was extremely important in history of man. There were two discoveries that must have been made right after the first domestic use of fire. These were baking clay and smelting metals through the use of heat. Again, the discoveries were accidental, as we do today when camping primitive man heaped rocks around the fire to contain it. It is thought that he must have also used clay to hold the rocks in position. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that the clay became hard after exposure to heat. This was actually the birth of the pottery industry. For it did not take inventive man long to realize that with his hands he could fusion useful shapes of the soft clay and then bake them into permanent utensils and dishes. Possibly at the same time the heat of the fire must have melted the metal or metallic ores present in some of the stones, and primitive man was treated to the slight of molten metal in tiny rivulets from the red-hot stones. When the fire of little rivers hardened he found that he had a material that made better tools and weapons than he had ever had before. This first metal to be used by primitive man was copper, easily melted and easily shaped. He learned to find stones carrying the blue-green trace of copper, melted the ore free of the stone matrix and poured it into moulds. Soon he began to search for rocks that contained other metallic ores. It was a great step forward. Many thousands of years later when the Iron Age was born, it was all because man had discovered to tame the fire god and put it to work. Man's use of fire has never ended. Today we have many sophisticated methods of producing this natural phenomenon, but we still use fire in the same ways as primitive man when we cook, bake pottery or smelt metal with it. We burn gas or oil, heat our homes and we use the hot electrically produced sparks to ignite the fuel in a gasoline or diesel engine. Fire was one of the very first important discoveries that humans made. It still is one of the most important.